The Obsolete
by Rose-Kuniochi
Summary: When the banished Sohma Raima return to the place she hadn't been too in almost fifteen years, her past that she tried so hard to forget comes back to bite her hard. Will she find a happy solution to her tramatic past?
1. Chapter 1

"**Annoy me and your dead before you hit the floor." Raima hissed as Shigure opened his mouth to speak. She was a piece of work, and it was like their childhood all over again. But although many of the girls he has known had threatened him with this, only this one can actually kill you before you hit the ground. She is a black belt in all known martial arts and very handy with weapons and other things a human can throw. Shigure rubbed his head with a painful memory. Carrying her rucksack out of politeness, Shigure watched Raima's ash white head bob through the crowd towards a food stand. Returning a minute later, Raima held a slushy as a peace offering for him. Shigure noticed that she wore a pair of black gloves. The place was bustling, and Shigure was wondering why she hadn't turned.**

"**Why are you here?" Shigure asked through a mouthful of slushy.**

"**I had to get away, it was hectic, even for me." Raima responded. **

"**But Akito forbade you to return here…"**

"**He can go for a shit." Raima smiled. A couple of passer-bys glanced backwards at the potty- mouthed girl. She just glared back. "We never saw eye- to -eye Shigure, you know that."**

"**I know that." Shigure said. **

"**And anyway, I thought I would return for a holiday or something…" she motioned for her rucksack. "I here that you have a girl living with you…a Honda Tohru?"**

**Shigure notice something else. Her whole demeanour had softened. But the exterior still commanded attention. With her ash-blonde hair, there was also the fact that she had a pale complexion and almost metallic blue eyes that are framed by the most outrageously gravity defying eyelashes. She also was wearing cherry red lipstick. If one had to choose if Raima was Asian or not, it would pretty much be a slide to the not. It was also the generously proportioned body she had. Any guy would want that. Shigure remembered her as a tomboyish teen that would rather fight than put on a dress and play tea time. Sometimes she would have to be forced into a dress and when that happened, her volcano-like anger hurt everyone in a ten mile radius. **

"**There's Kyo and Tohru, they were waiting for us." Shigure pointed.**

"**Fine."**

**--**

**Tohru looked up to the sky. She admired the purity of the light that shone down from the blackness. Kyo stopped walking and turned. Slowly, Tohru noticed that she was walking alone and turned. Shigure was in normal clothing, a pair of barely worn jeans and a green striped tee-shirt. But it was the girl beside him that caught Tohru's attention. She was goddess like and she knew it. **

"**Is she a relative?" Tohru asked . Kyo nodded.**

"**It was said that she angered Akito so much that she was forbidden to return to Japan."**

"**She doesn't look Japanese." Tohru said.**

**"That's her Norse heritage…" Kyo said. "Raima's mother is a High preistess that originally came to Japan to help our family. She was reputed to be very powerful…"**

**"Was?"**

**"After Raima was born, Akira banished both mother and child from the Sohma family and Japan indefinatly." Kyo paused as Shigure and Raima came closer.**

**"Cat-fry." Raima smiled. Kyo nodded. "And you must be Honda Tohru, it's a pleasure to meet you." Raima said, extending a black gloved hand to Tohru.**

**After this, Raima stretched and yawned.**

**"Stupid jet lag." She cursed. "let's go, I am very tired."**

**--**


	2. Cat Fight!

Chapter two:

Raima wasn't hungry. She usually didn't eat on the first night when she came to a new place, because the host usually becomes a little bit overeager. Instead she had a stroll around the Sohma forests.

"What is she doing?" Tohru asked Shigure. Shigure shrugged.

"I don't know, it was the first time I had seen her in almost twelve years this afternoon."

"So you were friends with her." Yuki asked.

"I pretended to be her older brother. She was a orphan when she came here. She wasn't banished, her mother died in child birth and her family from England whisked her away. But she still wrote to me." Shigure said as he accepted his food from Tohru. "Every month."

"So you were close to her."

"Yeah."

"Well you could have said that in the beginning." Kyo hissed.

"Why are you threatened because she is a cat?" Shigure asked sharply. Tohru frowned. Raima wasn't a cat. She was a female human.

"No."

Yuki saw Tohru's confused face and explained what Shigure said.

"Raima is a Snow Tiger."

"But that isn't in the Zodiac is it?" Tohru muttered as she tried to think.

"No. But that's because there is another story…of why it wasn't included in the Zodiac…" Shigure said in a storyteller voice. "And yet again it was because of the rat."

Yuki didn't flinch.

"It is said that the mother tiger bore two cubs, a Bengal Tiger and a White Snow tiger. This snow tiger was a sickly cub and the mother cub couldn't look after it, so the Jade Emperor took the cub in and healed it. But the Rat was very fond of it…"

"And the rat took the cub away from the Jade Emperor and hid it away in the snow capped mountains where the Jade Emperor searched many a day but didn't find it. Here, the rat bought up the cub as it's own and when the banquet was to happen, he bought the cub, now a fully grown Tigress to the banquet. But the cubs older brother, the Bengal tiger had already been accepted into the Zodiac, this had made the Snow tiger mad and she stormed out, vowing never to return as long as the rat was alive…well I think I reneged on my vow." Raima said as she stood at the door. "This story was told to me since I had been able to understand it. I have no hard feelings against the Bengal tiger…it just wasn't my day then."

Tohru was crying at the story.

"It seems that you are back from your walk." Shigure smiled.

"I needed fresh air." Raima said, settling down beside Kyo. "Being stuck in a plane for how long is absolute torture."

"None of us would know." Kyo shot. "We would transform if we were to be touched, remember?"

"Well little cub, I wouldn't know, because I don't turn like you do." Raima responded, glaring at him dangerously. Tohru slid as far away from the pair as possible. The felines were ready to fight.

"Cat fight, cat fight, cat fight!" Shigure chanted. Raima turned away from Kyo and chuckled.

"Your not worth my time." Raima said. Tohru saw Kyo's ears prick up.

'What does that mean!!!" Kyo shouted angrily.

"Just what I said." Raima said, her voice low and dangerously. "YOU ARE NOT WORTH MY TIME!"

Shigure groaned.

"We better move before we get killed."

"Why?" Tohru asked. Shigure glared at Raima. "Is she that strong?"

Raima snapped. She leaned onto the table and her sheer strength snapped the table in half, straight towards Shigure.

"Does that answer your question?" Shigure said, frightened beyond belief. Tohru nodded, swallowing hard. Yuki just stood and took his dishes to the kitchen, and the others followed suit, dodging a full plate of food.

"Why are they so scary together?" Tohru asked.

"It's their natures." Yuki said. "They are both cats…when another cat comes into another's territory it's a sure sight of a fight."

"And their relationships worse than Kyo and Yuki's." Shigure added. Kyo flew through the paper door. Raima stood there, her ears and tail already out. They were the same ash blond as her hair. Her eyes had changed from the neutral metallic blue that it was not minutes before to a hair-raising electric green.

"Get here GINGER!"

She grabbed the scruff of his neck and threw her through the other paper door.

"I hope they fix the house after their fight." Shigure muttered. Tohru looked at Shigure, he was more worried for the house than the welfare of the two who were fighting. Shigure saw the face that Tohru had and grinned.

"They will be fine…I think this is anger management for both of them."

--

_Authors note:_

_First Fruits Basket Fanfic, so proud of it…so, if you want to read more I will write more!_

_Arigato,_

_Rosie. _O3O

--


	3. Hunting for blood

**Chapter Three:**

**Three little Tiger cubs sitting in a pile**

**Shigure found her in the sheltered waterfall that she had found when she was little. Raima was also meditating too, by the look of her voice moving soundlessly. In a pile in front of her were three tiger cubs, two Snow tigers and a lone Bengal orange. One twitched and meowed.**

**She opened her eyes and looked in his direction. **

"**So you followed me."**

"**Sure." Shigure muttered. "Isn't that what a brother is supposed to do?"**

**She gathered the cubs into her satchel and stood.**

"**Are you hurt in anyway?" Shigure asked as she strided over to her.**

"**No." Raima replied. "The boy didn't touch me."**

**--**

**Raima smiled as she re-entered the Sohma house. Shigure touched her shoulder and faced her.**

"**I know you have gone through lots Raima. And I also know that you want closure, that is why you are here…As I am your brother." at this, Raima chuckled. "I want to help in whatever way possible." Shigure looked at Raima with concern look in her face. **

"**When you meet Akito, and I know you will, tell him this" Raima said as she turned away. "I'm hunting for blood."**

**Shigure was stunned. **_**Hunting for blood?**_

"**Good bye."**

**--**


	4. Fifteen years ago

Fifteen Years ago…

It was raining as hard as it could on the ten year old girl as she clung to her schoolbag and trudged up the muddy driveway on her own. She was drenched, but didn't seem to care as the most debilitating news that seemed to emotionally cripple the girl was on repeat in her head.

_Your mother is dying, come home now..._

In her grief she didn't hear the footsteps behind her and didn't feel the umbrella protect her from the prevailing winds. A tall youth, not much older than her smiled down at her when she looked up at him, her usual sparkling sky blue eyes now a cold and miserable grey that seemed to mimic the unsympathetic skies above.

"Shigure-kun." The girl murmured.

"I'll walk with you home." Shigure said as he just seemed to be there. Although she could not touch him, she enjoyed his presence. His mere attention to her was the only thing that seemed to make this little girl feel somewhat less filled with pain.

As she reached the estate, this little girl, now soaking and her white hair was matted reached her doorway. She didn't have the willpower or strength to open the door when she heard the baby giggle in the usual way that babies do. Shigure opened it for her and the bane of her mother's existence stood there holding her son. Raima passed the woman with no comment, but Ren snickered.

"You and your filthy witch mother are going to be out of my house." Raima stopped and looked at the woman with such an outraged face that it made Ren quieten ever so slightly. When she turned it seemed that Ren regained her courage and called after her.

"Take that dead bitch out of my room."

This just made Raima snap. She couldn't control the animal when it heard this and she began to transform into the largest of white tigers she had ever become. She stared down the woman and her eyes regained the searing intensity that they held.

"What did you say you golddigging slag?" The tiger hissed and Ren, fearful for her life sprinted out into the cold with her child in hand. When Raima returned to her normal form was the time she entered her mother's sanctuary.

The room was dim, because Raima's mother couldn't stand intense light. She lay on her bed, the mere shell of what she used to be. By her side was Hatori's father, the family doctor, as well as her grandmother. Raima's mother ushered the girl by her side and Raima couldn't hold anything back anymore. And when she cried, all her mother could do was to hold her and tell her she was going to a better place where she wouldn't be in pain.

"Don't leave me mama." Raima screamed and her mother was close to tears too. "I don't want to be here without you."

"I will always be with you." Her mother murmured into her hair. "And I am _so_ proud of my little tigress. You are a gift to our family, both mine and your fathers."

"Don't die."

"Come here Raima." Her grandmother steered the girl away from her mother for a moment as the dying woman could lie down and when she closed her eyes, Raima screamed with all of her might, her wails of pain and heartache could be heard for miles around. It seemed like eternity until she calmed enough to be taken away so her grandmother could take the measures in cleaning and dressing her only daughter to take back to America.

Shigure waited for the girl at the end of the hall and when he saw the girl his heart sank. The expression she wore was the saddest he had seen on any child. When she saw him, she began to weep again and stopped. She couldn't move when she saw over his shoulder her father, that patriarch of the Sohma family, Akira. Her hair bristled and the same bolt of energy coursed through her body. Shigure dodged her as she jumped at him, hurling all of her anger and rage at her target as she clawed and bite until she was satisfied. Akira didn't fight the girl, but allowed her the outlet. He knew that most of this anger was because he had had the affair with Ren and this ended with a son that he seemed to be more attached to that Raima.

"Get off him you animal!" Ren roared and held the broom, ready to attack Raima. Akira saw this and sat up. Lifting his tired and now emotionless daughter, he didn't say a word as he walked away from her.

"We will speak later about what you had just said Ren." Akira said coldly when he reached the end of the hall. Shigure bowed slightly when Akira passed him.

"Akira-sama, Andromeda's family has arrived." Shigure announced.

"Good." Akira murmured. "Shigure, can you look after Raima while I discuss funeral arrangement for my wife." Shigure nodded and followed the Patriarch.

Raima wasn't sleepy. It seemed that this place bought back more unwanted memories than what she wanted. Shigure found her again, sitting on the veranda and sipping sake. When he took a closer look, he also had noticed the empty carton of bottles of beer, which at capacity held twenty four. Raima glanced back and saw him.

"It's the anniversary." Raima remarked with a wry tone.

"So it is." Shigure settled beside her and accepted a cup of sake.

"Don't look at me like that." Raima scorned.

"Like what?"

"I'm drinking my pain away." Shigure nodded and sipped the wine. "I haven't cried like that in ages…I didn't even cry at father's funeral." Raima zoned out for a moment as she sighed.

"Why did you _really_ come back to Japan Raima?"Shigure asked the woman.

"I don't know." Raima whispered softly. "Why would one come back to the place where your mother died right in front of you?"

"I don't know Raima."

"Grandmother said it would get easier with time…" Raima slammed the cup down and grunted when she found the cup shattered in her hand. Either it was because she didn't care or didn't feel it when she continued unperturbed. Shigure saw how numb and cold she was under the happy exterior. "But it feels like it had happened yesterday…"


End file.
